"If you’re American, you may not understand the curious institution we Britishers call bank holidays. Because of a general agreement that UK weather is so hideous that it’s not worth going outside except during the third week of June, instead families and friends choose to holiday inside their favourite bank for a long weekend. Lloyds TSB is famed for its indoor beaches, while Halifax really does excel at pony trekking tours of the vaults. In the evenings, we all drink tea and discuss the decline of the gold standard."

21.8.08

"Mark Scott-Crossley was given life by Phalaborwa Circuit Court in the Limpopo province in 2005 for assaulting former employee Nelson Chisale and then throwing him to a pack of lions. Little more than Chisale's skull, shards of bone and a finger were found at an enclosure for rare white lions. In September last year, the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside Scott-Crossley's murder conviction and gave him a five-year sentence after finding that the prosecution had not proved that Chisale was alive when he was thrown to the lions."

OH GOD I ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE. Did make me realise that Blizzard's cinematic trailers are the best in the business and that we are waaaay overdue for the World of Warcraft film. There's an unofficial fan site covering news, but the latest update was in April. That sucks.

'...recent happenings in Krugersdorp, South Africa, where a sword-wielding schoolboy killed 16-year-old Jacques Pretorius. Another pupil and two gardeners were also treated for stab wounds. As the attacker stalked through Nic Diederichs Technical High School, he was, according to reports, dressed in an outfit recalling Slipknot's Jordison – particularly the drummer's eerie mask.

18-year-old Morne Harmse is now in custody pending a court appearance later this month.

Pierre Eksteen, who directs a South African student support network, was among those holding "satanic music" partially responsible for the attack. "He came here camouflaged as the guy from Slipknot," Eksteen told the Times (in South Africa). "We know the wrong kind of music and drugs have bad effects. Young people need to be informed of the effects of bad Satanic music."'

19.8.08

I am running a lot of photography based blogs through my RSS feed reader right now, and I just wanted to give a quick mention to short sleep, which is possibly the best filter/ongoing collection of photography and other related images I've found yet. Possibly because most of them (which tend to be portraits) are taken from Flickr and occasionally Deviant Art, which makes it easier than most other websites to click through and explore the other works by the original artist. But I think the person behind it just has great instinct. All I know is that he's from Japan, and has another blog here. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two.

17.8.08

"A survey of 249 primary and secondary school teachers suggested 84.6% had CCTV in their school. The research, conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, also suggested more than half (52.9%) said it made them feel safer. But 23.4% were concerned there may be hidden cameras whose existence was kept from both staff and pupils."

9.8.08

"I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen"

8.8.08

"There has been much heated discussion and many opinions expressed as to why the Yew is so often found in churchyards. Some say it is the deep-dark green, almost eerie and shady presence of the tree. Other say because it is the tree of death, due to its poisonous chemistry, or that it was put in churchyards, where it would not be accessible to life-stock to grow wood for longbows.

Christian scholars have associated it with Christ as 'the tree of the cross' or with the theme of resurrection. However, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Yew was the archetype of "The Tree of Life" to people all over Europe eons before Christ was born.

A tree of the Yew family (which is itself at least 200 million years old) is the one living creature who, 'barring acts of God or man', is biologically able to live indefinitely: forever!"

4.8.08

3.8.08

"Kimchi is widely regarded among nutritionists as one of the healthiest foods on the planet, full of helpful vitamins and bacteria that promotes digestion. Among Koreans, it is regarded as a manbyongtongchiyak—a kind of miracle cure—that will help make you strong, prevent cancer and generally give you a garlicky glow, something like a halo, of kimchi-fueled health."